the latest news on the week's top stories barack obama's tough foreign policy action kicks in quick after softer rhetoric security control of the white house for another four years. the greek parliament approves next year's budget with a comfortable majority slashing spending some despite foreign lenders and finally qualifying on today tranche of e.u. bailout names. by western powers to step down and facing death threats from the rebels the syrian president exclusively tells r.t. that he'll stay in until he's voted out. and israel takes aim at its neighbors its first rounds at syria since one thousand nine hundred seventy three that's after killing six palestinian civilians twenty eight and click tracks from gaza.

you're watching artie's weekly news review welcome to the program after a grueling campaign that cost almost a billion dollars barack obama has secured a second term as a u.s. president he edged hard line and mitt romney by selling a socially conscious domestic vision and a diplomacy based focus on foreign affairs but a bomb a softer campaign talk soon transformed into even tougher action that's before all the ballots have been counted what is going to take an expense. in the wake of president obama's reelection there was no sense of euphoria as in two thousand and eight but his victory did come as a relief to most americans his challenger mitt romney was widely seen as more aggressive especially his foreign policy rhetoric also a seemingly out of touch with middle class america we are an american family and we

rise or fall together as one nation. fiscal cliff for him right after reelection is the so-called fiscal cliff a combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts all we need is action from the house. and i've got the pen ready to sign the bill right away. but averting the fiscal cliff is probably not the first issue addressed by the president. he also rise the drone strike targeting a group of al qaeda militants in yemen on wednesday the u.n. has raised concerns about the legality of such strikes due to reported heavy civilian casualties on the lack of transparency on the u.s. part we're in uncharted waters when it comes to policy american policy related to drones this week the administration imposed financial sanctions against iranian officials so the u.s. planes were jamming satellite broadcasts and blocking internet access and you read that comes on top of a whole lot of other sanctions that had been put in place by the u.s.

which proved to be crippling for the iranian economy the goal is not to change the iranian government's decision making it's actually leverage ordinary civilians against the iranian government and threaten to topple the government by inciting you know food riots or you know people who are unhappy because they can you know their grandparents are dying and can't get medicine and on friday despite president obama's claims the u.s. should move away from the cold war thinking in relations with russia the white house launched its first permanent military presence on polish soil the issue has been a constant sorting this side of relations between moscow and washington as the u.s. also plans to install missile interceptors in poland but the president every other democrat that i'm aware of is also made it clear that it believes russia is still opposed to it still sees it as we're just going to go ahead with any of the president's actions so far have shown while he may be talking soft he's acting

tough looking at some of president obama's first moves after reelection one could say he picks the idea of america being the wall police very seriously but the question is who can hold that world police itself accountable in washington i'm going to check on. a former cia officer told r.t. that obama needs to break free of the pressure exerted by america's right wing. what i would suggest is that he call a press conference what he would say is you know the campaign is over and i found out that i've been grievously misled they told me to say that iran had threatened to wipe israel off the map and i found out that they never said that it's a matter of fact the israeli deputy prime minister sort of said ok ok they never said that and so my speechwriters are being canned i'm going to get some new speechwriters the intelligence community keeps telling me that he ryan has not yet

decided to build a nuclear weapon and so i'm going to get rid of all those folks from brookings other places who are the soft on the speech saying well you know you still have to worry about this instead of negotiations once these troublesome people have their own agenda are dismissed then he has a square chance of saying look we're going to do a deal with the run just as i said five years ago we're going to talk directly to them and we're not going to let that be sabotaged by either israeli intelligence or israeli official or not those within the neoconservative camp in washington. lawmakers have approved next year's budget that will see government spending slashed by nine billion euros if a demonic by international lenders the move follows the passage of another even more extensive austerity package that's part of violent protests today with the cuts in place south and now qualifies for the next tranche of bailout money from

the e.u. just in time to avoid bankruptcy economist need to see a novelist as a passing the budget on the such terms is less about helping the economy about external control over greek finances. the release of these low more wage and long delayed thirty one point five billion euro tranche that's the only thing that the government uses as just for the program. and the program is unfair and probably is going to bring more recession then a recovery or leaning light year what they want to do is to have full control of budgetary situation i was reading as their disempowerment off and piece you have to say in the market itself so really the new conditions have to do with who is in control of the budgetary administration in greece is it the

greek government or is berlin. having the last say nothing. where syria's president has rebuffed the western calls to step down and warn that foreign intervention will spark a global disaster this elixir of interview for r.t. this week you can watch it online at r.t. dot com interviewer so he should not so explains what bashar assad had to say. the thing that really mark me the most is how really how much more complicated situation inside series that from what we see in the media because i talk to people yes the country is divided and even the people who didn't like us before this conflict started are now so scared that fundamentalists will come to power fundamentalists who are fighting on the side of the free syrian army and syrian people are not about that and this is like the only secular that had a lot of different religious groups always living in peace with each other whether

it's sunni or shia or always or christians so they're really scared that if our side goes the army will fall apart and then you know you have this extremist muslims coming to them and asking them to basically be just like them so it's not just about assad i think people feel like whether he goes or stays. it's only can get worse if he goes because it will get i mean that the terror attacks will continue and the fundamentalists will come to power so they're very scared of that assets that he's not a western puppet he also denies the fact that civil war is taking place in his country he's saying that it's not civil war it's a conflict where he has to fight different fractions of terrorism after so it's on the fact that the financing of this terrorist fractions was unprecedented and it was coming from abroad he also said that if the west were to intervene militarily it would have a do you know if from atlantic to pacific the prize will be an invasion if it's going. to be more than the whole world came before because if you have

a problem in syria and wrote this last phone call. or visit in the region and coexistence. it will have to do mean or face. to the pacific you know because you know. going. to go but you do so nobody can predict what's next. president assad maintains that only elections can determine his future but it seems that not everyone agrees the free syrian army is media chief says they want the president's head on a plate. in his statement to your channel he said he would not leave syria we know this very well because he will not be able to leave syria he and his people not managed to leave the country the free syrian army will not let him do this he will not get out of syria long enough you'll be lucky if you

notice the same fate as. leaders of the syrian opposition say they've signed an initial agreement to form a new umbrella coalition conference in qatar a syrian national council is not supporting the country itself i think the activists there broke away from the exiled officials meanwhile the u.k.'s top general says his countrymen launch an attack military intervention as it is this winter political analyst franklin lamb says that any further action can topple assad at this point. out third a nato type no fly zone massive massive air strikes no i don't think. the regime can be defeated because their air force is being supplied it still has a lot of reserves and i don't i don't see it measured got nato or a ground invasion i think what we've seen so far of this opposition which is actually splendor and some ways they've got

a very steep slope to climb the only reason we have that almost tissue quality remark was the threats and the courage or and the political pressure that was put on them pay had to do something this weekend do you think the west is going to show up in qatar and arrange a show and no result to know how long it'll last we don't know and it's been twenty one months into libya you recall and there are factions still aren't glued together and they had the benefit of the one thousand bombing runs by nato so i i think that the other problem is not the groups themselves which are very disparate but the lack of support. they've got now among the. the syrian people and what they have lost in terms of respect with through a lot of crimes they've committed a lot of assassinations and massacres and this is a last ditch effort in a sense to try to put together a viable opposition and only time will tell if it's going to stick together.

israel. the country decades. from. being revealed as a country. gracefully . it is a way of life traditionally the people are. also highly skilled and organized.

depending. on the day we found this particular camp they were settled near the coast of the sea here four families work together to manage nearly a thousand reindeer herding reindeer. people and. they can use almost every single part of the. deer is a means of transportation. for the. life in the tundra is harsh and so before winter hits many of the children are helicoptered to the center of the district for boarding school. students learn different languages utilize modern technologies through specialized grant programs and even learn arts skills all within

a protected. the school was founded and named for anton pity atika and then it's a scientist who wanted a better way of life for his people but even with the most progressive ideas and education many that say they don't want to trade the modern life for their beloved . i have returned to the tundra and i actually like it here if you're outside there's fresh air fresh water looks at the site you can see deer it's a joyful sight. a sentiment that hopefully ensures that russia's northern reindeer will have caretakers for generations to come. wealthy british style.

markets. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike brown no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser report on our. mission. critical three. three. three. three. three. three blog video for your media project free media r t v dot com. welcome back israel's military is currently engaged on both its northern and southern front is the country

a far into syria for the first time since the seventy's response to a mortar attack on the golan heights and it is warning of tougher action against militants in gaza after a surgeon from the palestinian territory reports now. only on sunday afternoon israel fired interest syrian territory for the first time since the nine hundred seventy three war as spoke earlier with the israeli defense forces christian unit who did confirm that these warning shots took place he said that they were in was once to a mortar shell for link near and the israeli military post in the golan heights now these ladies do not believe that they were the target they do believe that the shell was part of the byproduct of the internal fighting taking place in syria between forces loyal to assad and rebel fighters but the army is saying that if one hundred made more attacks from syria that violates the disengagement agreement between israel and syria now there have been several such incidents over the past two weeks just last week three syrian tanks crossed over the demilitarized zone

between the two countries alarming israelis and also causing them to raise their alert in the area the idea of has filed a complaint with the united nations saying that any kind of high image meeting from syria into israel will be responded to also on the southern israeli border we have seen a flare up of violence between the israelis and palestinian militants the latest we heard from the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is that his country is ready to strike harder against the gaza strip if it does not stop attacking israel he made these remarks today sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting in which he said and i'm quoting that the world must understand that israel cannot sit idly by while attempts are made to attack it the hostilities along the israel gaza border have it's going to choppy particularly this past weekend this follows israeli airstrikes that killed six palestinians four of whom were teenagers and two of whom belonged to the militant group islamic jihad according to the gaza health ministry

spokesperson there are a number of people who were injured the biggest stands at around thirty eight including children the problem though is that often in these israeli airstrikes israel lands of killing civilians and not militants as its intention. it is a must have taken responsibility for this attack there were four israeli soldiers and wounded in action and response from the palestinian side was dozens of rockets that were fired into southern israel on sunday morning the whole sort of israel is in a state of high alert and this comes of palestinian militants about to take the range for these states now flare ups along the israeli gaza border are quite common and we have seen already two flare ups this month this though is one of the highest casualty counts in gaza in a single incident in recent months and sectarian violence between rival religious groups broke out in neighboring lebanon three people died in a gun battle between the sunni followers of a hardline cleric and his but our fighters comes at

a time when shia muslims including has been our rock an annual ten day morning ritual instant is the latest in a spillover of violence from neighboring syria which analysts say is a mirror image of lebanon's own sectarian divides. right clashes of broken out in warsaw after around twenty thousand people marked polish independence day testers charted anti-government slogans and threw firecrackers security forces used rubber bullets tear gas and battens to bring the situation under control two police officers were injured and several right wing nationalists detained. a british soldier in afghanistan has been shot dead by a man when an afghan army uniform attack took place in helmand province and is the latest in a series of so-called green on blue attacks such instance have undermined the relationship between front and afghan forces in recent months sixty coalition

troops have died in similar attacks the syrian. and these twelve people have been killed and dozens more injured in a devastating earthquake a. six point eight magnitude quake struck the largest city collapsing a bridge and three workers into the bridge is the biggest earthquake to hit the country since twenty nine from. libya is trying to tout its wealth of ancient ruins to encourage tourists back to the country. even the kept visitors one away but the country's most recent history is off the map makers aren't likely to learn much about the deadly siege of bani walid less than a month ago. explains we here at the world travel market a trade taking place in london where people can consulate holiday inspiration that scouts exotic spot for a honeymoon a one country you probably wouldn't expect to see being touted as a tourist. and that's libya the places where the tourist interesting the site is

our political side it's completely safe it's got to be safe more than even big towns like london or my new york but there's somewhere that's not mentioned in the guide the bani walid a desert town this remain loyal to formally to colonel gadhafi it's just a few hours dry southeast of the traditional tourist destination chipley but it's a world away from the safe environment the two guides the pitching. the town's become the scene of some of the fiercest fighting since the libyan uprising last year but despite reports of indiscriminate shelling and gas attacks on the local population at the hands of the libyan army there's been an almost total media blackout in the. story for more than a fortnight before anyone else picked it up back in london and despite libya being showcased it seems that bani walid has once again been conveniently left out the

conversation when i saw. it was of course with surprise and i came. back of the situation at the moment. and if we have so many people it means situations they could be coming most and we can think for next season to do something with libya and it's a wonderful country so. what about what's happening in bani walid at the moment. but do you mean was hacked was being happening there's been fighting do you know about that no we went to confront the tour operator i saw you speaking some people you telling them about what's been happening in bani walid at the moment. this is. what it's come for the. reason because it was deeply disturbing is that despite a growing body of evidence about crimes against civilians and increasingly vocal concerns from human rights organizations ek media and government remain resolutely

silent i've got to sort of package nish as a success is very important for nato so we have the spin of these countries have been liberated in inverted commas great places to go great places to invest and the reality for the everyday person in these countries is a living hell really pick up one of travel information and you'll be given reasons to visit libya and undoubtedly there are many there's a concerning silence in a case by the u.k. media a seeming refusal to pull. about what's been happening in places like bani walid the reality is that the new government is struggling to control its militias and bridge the deep divides that remain in the country but none of that you are going to read about in a glossy brochure cerf. london. bahrain's our largest opposition group says hopes are fading for any breakthrough dialogue the gulf kingdom's deepening crisis witnessed fresh clashes this week authorities deploying

its paramilitary national guard to back police in a battle against protesters latest wave of protests began on friday security forces tear gas thousands of shiite worshippers trying to reach their mosques for prayers tonight he was killed in a traffic instant communications and it was more violence during his funeral on saturday authorities or public gatherings last hour any one who is a government actions was a politician. or national community to put more pressure on. doing. things well. meeting in d.c. with different. ministers and officials so everyone is saying more all of the international community are saying to their government. they don't want to go to that don't they don't want to respond to their people to the one demand that's why they are. security and spoke and try to ask all.

on the air they want to buy land but this is creates more violent platforms they know not to go to political dialogue without. pressure from don't tell national community to go back only get to ask for deadline at time of thing for the dialogue and forty four nothing will happen and we will continue with this stalemate but this is stalemate and stagnation. and known situation. you're watching r.t. right after the break we explore the fate of ethnic minorities in america's armed forces stay with us. in japan the average height for men is one hundred eighty two centimeters ten

centimeters shorter because of that some employers refused to hire me one of them even told me directly that i was too short to deal with the client's computers already spent three months in this hospital and plans to stay for another four to add the coveted seven santa majors to his stature invented by the famed soviet orthopedic is good for you is there of the nineteen fifties these frames for initially used to treat fractures and deformities by cutting bones and slowly pulling them up or therefore stimulating tissue regeneration it was out of was able to receive arms and legs and people who thought they were crippled for life be sent to the other patients shattered bones and in many cases their shattered lives in the angle when professing result of design his first frame using bicycle parts sixty years later his invention is increasingly being used to help people what eager to fracture their legs to become a few centimeters taller than the ultimate goal is still the same six thing

somebody is live both literally and figuratively about a third of patients admitted to the result of center now days seeking syringe refocus medical reasons most of them a man and most are not what you would call vertically challenged professor novick of who operated on many of them says it usually comes down to man's pride some of the first patient to turn to us with a leg length in the request to meet his fifteen centimeters to be still want to surgery because panos tool than him we like to say that we need to break their legs in order to fix their head. maybe nothing wrong with them from an orthopedic point of view but there is something psychological that prevents them from living their lives fully being happy and we fix it like lengthening surgeries a band in many countries and even the one l. out there pretty expansive in russia the entire course costs eleven thousand dollars about one tenth of the similar package in the united states financial

considerations for one of the reasons that brought this washington state native to western siberia his main motive for the surgery had to do with how he fared in the others in america advertised as one seventy five i was one sixty seven or one sixty eight and so one eight centimeters would have brought me right to average users wanted to be average for women height isn't so important you know i think girl can be short and it's not a big deal i think a guy is like expected to be taller just before the operation most this matter a russian girl who found he's a regional hide quite in dealing yet he still want to have had the surgery adding seven more centimeters to the self-confidence she took told me the whole time you're crazy you're normal you're perfect. so now or so they call you so what a compliment for somebody who's used to falling short of his own expectations.

i think now it's very obvious and clear and i have no doubt that donald rumsfeld may god forgive him dick cheney. and george bush and the other people who have been responsible for the deaths of these tens of thousands of people americans iraqis and other nationalities tens of thousands if not over one hundred thousand people they are responsible for that because they lied because they were. i wanted a war for economic reasons for political reasons for popularity reasons and maybe in george bush's case for family reasons. united states right now it's not beating its recruiting targets. we have walked through some neighborhoods down here in guatemala tens of thousand.